What is Draw Three?
Draw Three is Klondike with one change to the stock. Each time you turn the stock you take three cards at once and lay them on the waste pile, and only the last of the three, the one on top, can be played. When fewer than three cards are left in the stock, you turn what is left.
The cards under the top card are not lost: as soon as you play the top card to the tableau or a foundation, the card below it becomes playable, and so on down the waste pile. When the stock runs out you turn the waste pile over to make a new stock, in the same order, and go through it again. Passes are unlimited, as in the standard game.
Because the stock is dealt in threes, on each pass only every third card comes to the top unless your plays shift the groups. That makes Draw Three noticeably harder than turning one card at a time, and it rewards remembering where the cards you need are buried.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Solitaire | Draw Three |
|---|---|---|
| Turning the stock | Standard SolitaireOne card at a time. | Draw ThreeThree cards at a time, or the one or two cards that are left. |
| Playable waste card | Standard SolitaireThe card you just turned, on top of the waste pile. | Draw ThreeOnly the top card of the waste pile. The card under it becomes playable once the top card is played. |
| Cards you can reach in one pass | Standard SolitaireEvery card in the stock, one after another. | Draw ThreeMostly every third card, unless playing waste cards shifts the groups of three. |
| Passes through the stock | Standard SolitaireUnlimited: the waste pile is turned over to make a new stock in the same order. | Draw ThreeUnlimited, the same way. |
| Other options | Standard SolitaireVegas scoring and a limit on passes can be added. | Draw ThreeBoth can be added. With Vegas scoring, Draw Three allows three passes instead of the one allowed when turning one card. |
History
Klondike is the patience most people simply call Solitaire. Its name is usually linked to the Klondike region of Yukon, in Canada, the scene of a gold rush at the end of the 1890s. In the United States it was long also called Canfield, a name that card game writers keep for a different patience.
Card game books describe turning the stock either one card or three cards at a time. The choice reached millions of players through the solitaire program bundled with a widely used computer operating system from 1990: its options offered Draw One and Draw Three, and later versions still offer both.